A few years abo I visited a local art gallery; one of the exhibits was historic photography of jazz, from about 50 years ago.

I went with a coworker who, on the side, is both a musician and photographer. At about the fifth print, he made the observation, "If it were me, this negative would never have even made it into the enlarger." I agreed with him; most of the images were horribly blurred and almost unrecognizeable.

On the other hand, they did give a sense of what it was probably like being there, in those dim, smoky clubs. We both thought the photos had this redeeming virtue, although none would have been usable for reportage of the day.

Perhaps the two of us are stilted in our thinking, due to being something of "purist" photographers. If I had blurry negs like that today, and someone printed them for me, I still would not have any interest in them. But perhaps someone else, with a different viewpoint would? I dunno. As the old saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure.